I don’t like it when someone I’m dating speaks to me harshly. But I think my standards for that are much stricter than other people’s and I’m probably too sensitive.
Put it this way. I basically never get angry. If I am angry, I don’t think that licenses me to act much differently than I would normally. I can say I’m angry, I can explain why, we can have a chat and the person can explain why they acted as they did. Maybe I’ll see they did nothing wrong. Maybe they’ll see they did do something and say sorry. Maybe we won’t see eye to eye, which means if I still love them, I’ve just got to get over it. Anger turns to sadness, and we both get on with our lives (at least, perhaps, until it happens again, or something relevantly similar in which case I might bring it up to see if we can see eye to eye now).
I dont find relationship conversations like this tedious and i like clear boundaries. If both me and a partner could be committed to handling things this way, I’d love that.
In any case, this is all well and good, but thats if I’m angry. I can sign up to act a certain way, I can’t sign someone else up. So I guess I want to know what’s a reasonable way to act when angry? And what’s generally considered a reasonable way? And people who have happy marriages, what’s your guys way of dealing with things like this?
What’s worse, I seem to bring this stuff out of people. That they get angry, criticize, nothing I do is right. I even met someone and started dating them, and we both seemed to have had an ex that was like this, and then they started acting this way towards me. It made me feel kinda hopeless and I didn’t understand. But maybe what it reveals is just that I’m more sensitive than is reasonable, and she was acting normally. I did my best not to react and to get on with things to be clear. It was still new so I guess I was just focused on not doing anything wrong.
If people in the world just tend to act in a certain way, and I need to accept it if I want to be close to anyone, I can understand that. I just want to know, so I’m not giving up this thing I want for no reason, or giving up a part of myself I shouldn’t.
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No. Non toxic relationships where everyone involved respects each other boundaries and communicates like adults are very possible. They just require people to be willing to do the work.